There are more humans employed today than at any other time in history.
That's because there are more humans than any time in history.
You seem to have a Field-of-Dreams philosophy: "If you create more humans, jobs for them will come."
No so. There was massive population growth in the 20th century, leading to the present population of 7.5 billion humans, and modern technologies are the only reason they can support themselves.
If a similar baby boom had been attempted 3000 years ago, or 300 years ago, it would not have resulted in billions of employed humans. It merely would have resulted in lots of dead babies.
the percentage of those humans earning a living wage has been going down
Define "living wage." Does that mean an income with which you can afford to have running water in your home? Then the percentage of humans earning a living wage is orders of magnitude higher than it was 140 years ago.
Does it mean an income with which you can afford to own an automobile? Then the percentage of humans earning a living wage is orders of magnitude higher than it was 110 years ago.
Does it mean an income with which you can afford cell phone service? Then the percentage of humans earning a living wage is orders of magnitude higher than it was 25 years ago.
Note that all these improvements in the standard of living were made possible by disruptive technologies... the very thing that inexplicably causes so much angst among people who should know better.
We do not need more production. We already produce more than we can sell.
That depends on what commodity you're talking about. We don't need more production of basic staples, like cheap loaves of white Wonder bread. But as one's standard of living climbs above what it takes to secure the basic necessities, you ascend Maslow's hierarchy and begin to acquire things that aren't necessities.
From the perspective of a consumer who wants a Tesla but can only afford a Hyundai, we are not producing enough Teslas.
Fifteen years from now, hopefully that consumer will be in an improved situation: he can afford a Tesla, but can't afford a flying car. And then the perception will be that we're not producing enough flying cars.
There will always be greater things to aspire to, so unless you want to place a static ceiling on everyone's standard of living, it's incorrect to decree that "we do not need more production."
Show me any company that is willing to pass those savings onto customers!...Costs are never going down
I can show you thousands of gas stations whose prices fluctuate up and down several times per month. The upward fluctuations happen when they pass along some of a price increase charged by their wholesale supplier. The downward fluctuations happen when they pass along some of a price reduction charged by their wholesale supplier.
(I say "some of" because in the presence of competition, businesses tend to pass along some but not all of the magnitude of these increases and decreases.)
Duh, how did you get +5 Informative for that easily disproven notion?
There are more humans employed today than at any other time in history. Is that in spite of all the technologies that have been developed, or because of them?
Answer: the pattern we've seen at least since Roman times is that moderately disruptive new technologies have a moderately positive net effect on employment, and massively disruptive new technologies have a massively positive net effect on employment.
I would not bet on any presently-emerging technologies being the first exception to this rule.
A technology that solves more general problems will be more massively disruptive than a technology that solve a specific problem.
Does it really matter if that life is denied before or after conception?
There's a ridiculous question. It matters greatly. Your question can be restated as, "is not bringing a human being into existence the ethical equivalent of killing an existing human being?"
And the answer is obvious. Not bringing a human being into existence is something we all do almost every day. In fact, to the extent that overpopulation is prevented, not bringing a human being into existence is an ethical plus.
The life experiences and liberties that you have enjoyed are not mere "potentialities," they are real and actual; and it is undeniable that - if you had been killed 5 years ago, some fraction of them would have been robbed from you (and you would be dead today) - if you had been killed 10 years ago, some greater fraction of them would have been robbed from you (and you would be equally dead today) - if you had been killed when you were a fetus, 100% of them would have been robbed from you (and you would be equally dead today).
But if you had never been created at all, there would be no "you" to kill and no "you" from which anything could be robbed. In fact, there are an infinite number of non-entities who cannot be victims of ethical infractions, by virtue of their nonexistence.
Turns out this is relevant to the sentence that has been my sig for 16 years. You and I are part of "that that is," while non-entities comprise "that that is not."
It's unethical to rob liberties away from a human being that has already been created.
A "duty to cause pregnancy" does not in any way follow from that fact. I can't even fathom what kind of twisted reasoning brought you to that conclusion.
There are lots of legislative acts on the books that require everyone to respect the rights of others. They range from - trivial things (to not call others for certain reasons) - to more weighty (e.g., to not damage or steal the property of others) - to the laws with the most serious penalties (to not kill others; but curiously, these laws cease to protect the victim's rights if the victim has not completely made it through an arbitrary process called birth, or in some cases, an arbitrary stage of human development called the "third trimester")
Not only is there nothing wrong with laws that require everyone to respect the rights of others; some of these laws are essential to any high-functioning society.
Do these thousands of existing laws require anyone to sincerely believe that others have rights that should be respected? No. You can be inwardly contemptuous of others' rights, or you can believe we're merely biological machines upon which it would be silly to endow rights; but you'll do just fine if you merely act like you believe, by not violating the law.
The people of Indiana, via the legislators they duly elected, decided that everyone has a right to dignified disposal of their human remains. To their credit, they didn't make an exception for those who didn't make it through an arbitrary process called birth. FWIW, Snopes says the law does not require anyone "to hold funerals for abortions or miscarriages -- much less at their own expense."
Even religious people should not try to argue it on the basis of religious ideology. Ethical matters should be decided on the basis of arguments that appeal to a broad spectrum, including atheists.
There's another libertarian argument that you're missing. Consider:
(a) If you had been killed by a notorious criminal yesterday, you would be dead today, but at least you would not have been robbed of the life experiences and liberties you've enjoyed to date. (b) If you had been killed when you were a fetus, you would be dead today -- an outcome indistinguishable from (a) -- but furthermore you would have been robbed of 100% of your life experiences and liberties.
Clear-thinking libertarians should therefore conclude that (b) is a greater ethics violation than (a).
You have to admit that for better or worse, this political attitude:
"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," Obama said. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them."
If you're going to declare that a batch of cells that will eventually become a fully formed human must be protected as legal persons, then why not sperm cells and ova?
Fertilized human eggs are human beings in their earliest stage of development. Sperm cells and ova are not human beings. These are such basic scientific facts, it's clear you're being deliberately obtuse.
Consider: (a) if you had been killed by a notorious criminal yesterday, you would be dead today, but at least you would not have been robbed of the life experiences and liberties that you've enjoyed to date. (b) If you had been killed when you were a fertilized egg, you would be dead today -- an outcome indistinguishable from (a) -- but furthermore you would have been robbed of 100% of your life experiences and liberties.
Clear-thinking libertarians should therefore conclude that (b) is a worse crime than (a).
If "fully formed" is your criteria for whether it's OK to terminate a human, then 10-year-old children are clearly fair game. They are by no means "fully formed."
China and India are building more clean energy sources than the USA
Ah, but you ignore the fact that China is building more energy sources of all types. Our friends at Greenpeace warn that in 2016, China has been starting coal-fired power plants at the rate of two per week. http://energydesk.greenpeace.o...
You were correct to take the analysis to the next level by calling for a CO2-emissions-per-capita figure, rather than simply comparing the raw carbon emissions of China and the U.S.
But now, take it to yet another level by comparing CO2 emissions per unit of GDP produced. I did the simple arithmetic for the 2009 figures and here is how many tons of carbon are required to produce each dollar of GDP:
China: 3.69e-4 U.S.: 9.85e-5
By this measure, the U.S. produces goods and services 3.74 times more efficiently than China.
Now, you can chalk the much larger U.S. GDP up to the decadent lifestyle of Americans -- they consume much more, so they have to produce much more, right? But every country on earth aspires to someday match and then exceed the U.S. GDP per capita, and it would be a mistake to ignore that dynamic.
So, China emitted 1.84 billion tons of carbon in 2009, and when the year arrives that China matches the 2009 U.S. GDP per capita, it will emit 23.1 billion tons of carbon.
(This assumes two things: China's population does not grow, and its efficiency as measured by carbon-per-unit-of-GDP does not change. Population growth would make the scenario worse, and an efficiency improvement would of course make it better.)
If you feel giving pedicures is a make-work job, would you want an across-the-board reduction in disposable income so that fewer people can afford pedicures (as was the case 50 years ago)?
Or would you simply ban pedicures?
And what would you do with those who were formerly employed giving pedicures? Do you have a more meaningful job lined up for them? Would you have them do nothing and simply receive UBI? (It's not even clear whether you are pro- or anti-UBI.)
With some exceptions, a job should be considered a make-work job only if it can't sustainably exist in a free market without government subsidies. By that definition, pedicurists do not have make-work jobs.
My grandmother, a middle-class woman, never got a pedicure. She probably thought of them as a wasteful thing that the idle rich spend money on.
My wife -- also a middle-class woman, but with an improved standard of living thanks to a few more decades of economic growth -- gets pedicures a few times a year.
While giving pedicures is work that doesn't need to be done, it's not shuffling deck chairs. It's a service that is has value because it's perceived to have value (my wife is happy to part with however many dollars it costs). As such it really is a sustainable basis for an economy, and should not be denigrated. As everyone gains more disposable income, we should be grateful for the fact that people can earn a living doing that type of work, and people can enjoy the fruits of that work.
whatever everyone has becomes mediocre
That depends entirely on whether you're taught to appreciate the progress that has been made.
A New York Times reporter noted that 50 years ago, poor people in Mississippi couldn't afford shoes and didn't have enough to eat, but today, poor people in Mississippi wear Nikes and have obesity as their #1 health problem. And then, that reporter failed to state the correct conclusion: absolute poverty in Mississippi has been vanquished, and the only type of poverty remaining is relative poverty.
For people who are able to put this in historical perspective, that's a triumph to be grateful for. Kings and queens who lived 400 years ago were in relative poverty compared to me (they had no air conditioning, no internet, no antibiotics to prevent a simple infection from killing them).
For people who aren't educated enough to put it in perspective, their relative poverty is something to bitch about. But the correct response (which engenders much better mental health) is to be grateful that they don't live in the absolute poverty of their ancestors. Providing this kind of education, which empowers people to correctly perceive that "I have it good," ought to be a priority; it would be far less expensive than showering them with high-end consumer goods that they think they should be entitled to.
I, for one, will never think my $12,000 Honda Civic is "mediocre" just because my neighbor has an $80,000 Mercedes. My Civic is a damn sight better than the horse and buggy my great-great-grandfather drove.
in the long term the economy will adjust to the excess supply of cheap labour and invent new ways to use it, not necessarily as pleasant as the old manual jobs.
That is why there are currently more people employed than at any time in human history. Thanks to modern technologies, entire new classes of jobs have come into existence, and they certainly are more pleasant than the old manual jobs (such as harvesting grain with a scythe, or digging coal out of the ground with hand tools).
But that trend would be wrecked by a UBI. There won't be an excess supply of cheap labor, when a UBI pays people to do nothing.
We *should* be approaching a 15 hour workweek by now. The historical trend is for the workweek to get shorter and shorter. But this trend got stuck. Employees who would really like to work, say, 18 hours per week, refrain from doing so for lots of reasons. Maybe they would lose benefits; maybe they fear a stigma of being perceived as lazy; maybe their employer isn't equipped to create nontraditional working arrangements.
As a 40-hour-per-week employee (what is currently arbitrarily considered a "full time" worker), I contribute to the cost of my health insurance, and my employer makes an even bigger contribution. That's a trap. Just increase my hourly wage by the amount of the employer contribution, and have me pay the entire cost of the health insurance.
But if the work that needs to be done could be divvied up between more employees, working blissfully short workweeks, you would (1) have a surge in the number of employed people, (2) eliminate the need to import H-1B workers, and (3) create far more social benefits than a UBI would.
So under UBI, if you tune out and do no work, your family will have more income than the current scenario where you are engaged in a job through which you contribute valuable services to society.
That would be great for your family, but bad for society. And if millions of people decide to stop creating goods and services, suddenly there's a massive shortage of them.
If there's an incentive for a software developer to stop working, the incentive is that much greater for a low-skilled person, such a sanitation worker, to stop working. Garbage will pile up in the streets.
After you think it through, you realize UBI is unworkable.
The idea is that you rejig both taxes and ubi do that for example net income for a median tax earner doesn't change.
Their net income won't change, but their motivation to create goods or services that benefit society will certainly change, when they look around and observe that people who do absolutely no work are now receiving a "basic" income that their hardworking grandparents would have envied.
That seems to be a major flaw that UBI supporters overlook.
Under UBI, a highly-paid person would probably find enough motivation to keep doing what they're doing, but think about a sanitation worker. He could stop the hard work of tossing smelly bags of garbage into trucks, and earn nearly the same income as he currently does. Under UBI, wages for those types of jobs would have to massively increase, just to keep people on the job.
There are more people employed today than at any other time in history. Unless you know someone who makes hand-dipped candles for a living, every worker you know has a job made possible by modern technologies.
The Luddites who feared their jobs in the textile industry would be replaced by machines benefited as much as anyone, as textiles became far more affordable. For the first time in history, millions of people could afford to wear more than rags.
Time and time again, we've seen that moderately disruptive technologies have had a moderate net positive effect on the number of jobs available, and massively disruptive new technologies have had a massive net positive effect on the number of jobs available. 21st-century technologies will be no exception.
The candidates don't visit the vast majority of the states
Good. Do you really want that circus coming to your state? New flash: there exist modes of communication called television, and the internet, through which you can learn about a candidate's platform without them having to actually visit your state.
Slashdot Mirror
There are more humans employed today than at any other time in history.
That's because there are more humans than any time in history.
You seem to have a Field-of-Dreams philosophy: "If you create more humans, jobs for them will come."
No so. There was massive population growth in the 20th century, leading to the present population of 7.5 billion humans, and modern technologies are the only reason they can support themselves.
If a similar baby boom had been attempted 3000 years ago, or 300 years ago, it would not have resulted in billions of employed humans. It merely would have resulted in lots of dead babies.
the percentage of those humans earning a living wage has been going down
Define "living wage." Does that mean an income with which you can afford to have running water in your home? Then the percentage of humans earning a living wage is orders of magnitude higher than it was 140 years ago.
Does it mean an income with which you can afford to own an automobile? Then the percentage of humans earning a living wage is orders of magnitude higher than it was 110 years ago.
Does it mean an income with which you can afford cell phone service? Then the percentage of humans earning a living wage is orders of magnitude higher than it was 25 years ago.
Note that all these improvements in the standard of living were made possible by disruptive technologies... the very thing that inexplicably causes so much angst among people who should know better.
We do not need more production. We already produce more than we can sell.
That depends on what commodity you're talking about. We don't need more production of basic staples, like cheap loaves of white Wonder bread. But as one's standard of living climbs above what it takes to secure the basic necessities, you ascend Maslow's hierarchy and begin to acquire things that aren't necessities.
From the perspective of a consumer who wants a Tesla but can only afford a Hyundai, we are not producing enough Teslas.
Fifteen years from now, hopefully that consumer will be in an improved situation: he can afford a Tesla, but can't afford a flying car. And then the perception will be that we're not producing enough flying cars.
There will always be greater things to aspire to, so unless you want to place a static ceiling on everyone's standard of living, it's incorrect to decree that "we do not need more production."
Show me any company that is willing to pass those savings onto customers! ...Costs are never going down
I can show you thousands of gas stations whose prices fluctuate up and down several times per month. The upward fluctuations happen when they pass along some of a price increase charged by their wholesale supplier. The downward fluctuations happen when they pass along some of a price reduction charged by their wholesale supplier.
(I say "some of" because in the presence of competition, businesses tend to pass along some but not all of the magnitude of these increases and decreases.)
Duh, how did you get +5 Informative for that easily disproven notion?
very few have a cleaner, cook, live-in nanny, butler and so on.
The number of billionaires is a good proxy for the number of people who employ those kind of household staff.
And guess what: the number of billionaires is at a record high, and climbing.
I expect the world's first trillionaire will pay a seven-figure salary to the head of household staff.
By the way, Neal deGrasse Tyson predicts, "The first trillionaire there will ever be is the person who exploits the natural resources on asteroids."
There are more humans employed today than at any other time in history. Is that in spite of all the technologies that have been developed, or because of them?
Answer: the pattern we've seen at least since Roman times is that moderately disruptive new technologies have a moderately positive net effect on employment, and massively disruptive new technologies have a massively positive net effect on employment.
I would not bet on any presently-emerging technologies being the first exception to this rule.
A technology that solves more general problems will be more massively disruptive than a technology that solve a specific problem.
Does it really matter if that life is denied before or after conception?
There's a ridiculous question. It matters greatly. Your question can be restated as, "is not bringing a human being into existence the ethical equivalent of killing an existing human being?"
And the answer is obvious. Not bringing a human being into existence is something we all do almost every day. In fact, to the extent that overpopulation is prevented, not bringing a human being into existence is an ethical plus.
The life experiences and liberties that you have enjoyed are not mere "potentialities," they are real and actual; and it is undeniable that
- if you had been killed 5 years ago, some fraction of them would have been robbed from you (and you would be dead today)
- if you had been killed 10 years ago, some greater fraction of them would have been robbed from you (and you would be equally dead today)
- if you had been killed when you were a fetus, 100% of them would have been robbed from you (and you would be equally dead today).
But if you had never been created at all, there would be no "you" to kill and no "you" from which anything could be robbed. In fact, there are an infinite number of non-entities who cannot be victims of ethical infractions, by virtue of their nonexistence.
Turns out this is relevant to the sentence that has been my sig for 16 years. You and I are part of "that that is," while non-entities comprise "that that is not."
It's unethical to rob liberties away from a human being that has already been created.
A "duty to cause pregnancy" does not in any way follow from that fact. I can't even fathom what kind of twisted reasoning brought you to that conclusion.
There are lots of legislative acts on the books that require everyone to respect the rights of others. They range from
- trivial things (to not call others for certain reasons)
- to more weighty (e.g., to not damage or steal the property of others)
- to the laws with the most serious penalties (to not kill others; but curiously, these laws cease to protect the victim's rights if the victim has not completely made it through an arbitrary process called birth, or in some cases, an arbitrary stage of human development called the "third trimester")
Not only is there nothing wrong with laws that require everyone to respect the rights of others; some of these laws are essential to any high-functioning society.
Do these thousands of existing laws require anyone to sincerely believe that others have rights that should be respected? No. You can be inwardly contemptuous of others' rights, or you can believe we're merely biological machines upon which it would be silly to endow rights; but you'll do just fine if you merely act like you believe, by not violating the law.
The people of Indiana, via the legislators they duly elected, decided that everyone has a right to dignified disposal of their human remains. To their credit, they didn't make an exception for those who didn't make it through an arbitrary process called birth. FWIW, Snopes says the law does not require anyone "to hold funerals for abortions or miscarriages -- much less at their own expense."
Even religious people should not try to argue it on the basis of religious ideology. Ethical matters should be decided on the basis of arguments that appeal to a broad spectrum, including atheists.
There's another libertarian argument that you're missing. Consider:
(a) If you had been killed by a notorious criminal yesterday, you would be dead today, but at least you would not have been robbed of the life experiences and liberties you've enjoyed to date.
(b) If you had been killed when you were a fetus, you would be dead today -- an outcome indistinguishable from (a) -- but furthermore you would have been robbed of 100% of your life experiences and liberties.
Clear-thinking libertarians should therefore conclude that (b) is a greater ethics violation than (a).
Coal isn't dying because of politics.
You have to admit that for better or worse, this political attitude:
"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," Obama said. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them."
is a contributing factor to coal's death.
If you're going to declare that a batch of cells that will eventually become a fully formed human must be protected as legal persons, then why not sperm cells and ova?
Fertilized human eggs are human beings in their earliest stage of development. Sperm cells and ova are not human beings. These are such basic scientific facts, it's clear you're being deliberately obtuse.
Consider:
(a) if you had been killed by a notorious criminal yesterday, you would be dead today, but at least you would not have been robbed of the life experiences and liberties that you've enjoyed to date.
(b) If you had been killed when you were a fertilized egg, you would be dead today -- an outcome indistinguishable from (a) -- but furthermore you would have been robbed of 100% of your life experiences and liberties.
Clear-thinking libertarians should therefore conclude that (b) is a worse crime than (a).
If "fully formed" is your criteria for whether it's OK to terminate a human, then 10-year-old children are clearly fair game. They are by no means "fully formed."
To change it to say person is to paint with as broad a brush as possible.
There really are some persons who oppose concentrating power in the state; i.e., they oppose statism.
They're not that hard to find.
China and India are building more clean energy sources than the USA
Ah, but you ignore the fact that China is building more energy sources of all types. Our friends at Greenpeace warn that in 2016, China has been starting coal-fired power plants at the rate of two per week. http://energydesk.greenpeace.o...
So how is your post not also a "dick move"?
You were correct to take the analysis to the next level by calling for a CO2-emissions-per-capita figure, rather than simply comparing the raw carbon emissions of China and the U.S.
But now, take it to yet another level by comparing CO2 emissions per unit of GDP produced. I did the simple arithmetic for the 2009 figures and here is how many tons of carbon are required to produce each dollar of GDP:
China: 3.69e-4
U.S.: 9.85e-5
By this measure, the U.S. produces goods and services 3.74 times more efficiently than China.
Now, you can chalk the much larger U.S. GDP up to the decadent lifestyle of Americans -- they consume much more, so they have to produce much more, right? But every country on earth aspires to someday match and then exceed the U.S. GDP per capita, and it would be a mistake to ignore that dynamic.
So, China emitted 1.84 billion tons of carbon in 2009, and when the year arrives that China matches the 2009 U.S. GDP per capita, it will emit 23.1 billion tons of carbon.
(This assumes two things: China's population does not grow, and its efficiency as measured by carbon-per-unit-of-GDP does not change. Population growth would make the scenario worse, and an efficiency improvement would of course make it better.)
So what is your solution?
If you feel giving pedicures is a make-work job, would you want an across-the-board reduction in disposable income so that fewer people can afford pedicures (as was the case 50 years ago)?
Or would you simply ban pedicures?
And what would you do with those who were formerly employed giving pedicures? Do you have a more meaningful job lined up for them? Would you have them do nothing and simply receive UBI? (It's not even clear whether you are pro- or anti-UBI.)
With some exceptions, a job should be considered a make-work job only if it can't sustainably exist in a free market without government subsidies. By that definition, pedicurists do not have make-work jobs.
My grandmother, a middle-class woman, never got a pedicure. She probably thought of them as a wasteful thing that the idle rich spend money on.
My wife -- also a middle-class woman, but with an improved standard of living thanks to a few more decades of economic growth -- gets pedicures a few times a year.
While giving pedicures is work that doesn't need to be done, it's not shuffling deck chairs. It's a service that is has value because it's perceived to have value (my wife is happy to part with however many dollars it costs). As such it really is a sustainable basis for an economy, and should not be denigrated. As everyone gains more disposable income, we should be grateful for the fact that people can earn a living doing that type of work, and people can enjoy the fruits of that work.
whatever everyone has becomes mediocre
That depends entirely on whether you're taught to appreciate the progress that has been made.
A New York Times reporter noted that 50 years ago, poor people in Mississippi couldn't afford shoes and didn't have enough to eat, but today, poor people in Mississippi wear Nikes and have obesity as their #1 health problem. And then, that reporter failed to state the correct conclusion: absolute poverty in Mississippi has been vanquished, and the only type of poverty remaining is relative poverty.
For people who are able to put this in historical perspective, that's a triumph to be grateful for. Kings and queens who lived 400 years ago were in relative poverty compared to me (they had no air conditioning, no internet, no antibiotics to prevent a simple infection from killing them).
For people who aren't educated enough to put it in perspective, their relative poverty is something to bitch about. But the correct response (which engenders much better mental health) is to be grateful that they don't live in the absolute poverty of their ancestors. Providing this kind of education, which empowers people to correctly perceive that "I have it good," ought to be a priority; it would be far less expensive than showering them with high-end consumer goods that they think they should be entitled to.
I, for one, will never think my $12,000 Honda Civic is "mediocre" just because my neighbor has an $80,000 Mercedes. My Civic is a damn sight better than the horse and buggy my great-great-grandfather drove.
in the long term the economy will adjust to the excess supply of cheap labour and invent new ways to use it, not necessarily as pleasant as the old manual jobs.
That is why there are currently more people employed than at any time in human history. Thanks to modern technologies, entire new classes of jobs have come into existence, and they certainly are more pleasant than the old manual jobs (such as harvesting grain with a scythe, or digging coal out of the ground with hand tools).
But that trend would be wrecked by a UBI. There won't be an excess supply of cheap labor, when a UBI pays people to do nothing.
We *should* be approaching a 15 hour workweek by now. The historical trend is for the workweek to get shorter and shorter. But this trend got stuck. Employees who would really like to work, say, 18 hours per week, refrain from doing so for lots of reasons. Maybe they would lose benefits; maybe they fear a stigma of being perceived as lazy; maybe their employer isn't equipped to create nontraditional working arrangements.
As a 40-hour-per-week employee (what is currently arbitrarily considered a "full time" worker), I contribute to the cost of my health insurance, and my employer makes an even bigger contribution. That's a trap. Just increase my hourly wage by the amount of the employer contribution, and have me pay the entire cost of the health insurance.
But if the work that needs to be done could be divvied up between more employees, working blissfully short workweeks, you would (1) have a surge in the number of employed people, (2) eliminate the need to import H-1B workers, and (3) create far more social benefits than a UBI would.
my salary gets replaced by $120,000
So under UBI, if you tune out and do no work, your family will have more income than the current scenario where you are engaged in a job through which you contribute valuable services to society.
That would be great for your family, but bad for society. And if millions of people decide to stop creating goods and services, suddenly there's a massive shortage of them.
If there's an incentive for a software developer to stop working, the incentive is that much greater for a low-skilled person, such a sanitation worker, to stop working. Garbage will pile up in the streets.
After you think it through, you realize UBI is unworkable.
The idea is that you rejig both taxes and ubi do that for example net income for a median tax earner doesn't change.
Their net income won't change, but their motivation to create goods or services that benefit society will certainly change, when they look around and observe that people who do absolutely no work are now receiving a "basic" income that their hardworking grandparents would have envied.
That seems to be a major flaw that UBI supporters overlook.
Under UBI, a highly-paid person would probably find enough motivation to keep doing what they're doing, but think about a sanitation worker. He could stop the hard work of tossing smelly bags of garbage into trucks, and earn nearly the same income as he currently does. Under UBI, wages for those types of jobs would have to massively increase, just to keep people on the job.
There are more people employed today than at any other time in history. Unless you know someone who makes hand-dipped candles for a living, every worker you know has a job made possible by modern technologies.
The Luddites who feared their jobs in the textile industry would be replaced by machines benefited as much as anyone, as textiles became far more affordable. For the first time in history, millions of people could afford to wear more than rags.
Time and time again, we've seen that moderately disruptive technologies have had a moderate net positive effect on the number of jobs available, and massively disruptive new technologies have had a massive net positive effect on the number of jobs available. 21st-century technologies will be no exception.
The candidates don't visit the vast majority of the states
Good. Do you really want that circus coming to your state? New flash: there exist modes of communication called television, and the internet, through which you can learn about a candidate's platform without them having to actually visit your state.
I *live* in a border state... the largest border state in the union; indeed, the largest state IN the union.
Global warming is going to be a godsend for you Alaskans.
"Clinton was the second United States President to be impeached after Andrew Johnson" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
CERN stands for Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire. In English, it's the European Organization for Nuclear Research.